Institutions running servers on networks manage network-accessible accounts. These institutions also maintain databases that store the information pertinent to these network-accessible accounts. The servers connect to these databases to enable users to securely access these accounts over the networks and read or modify account information in the databases.
Such network-accessible accounts are financial or non-financial. These accounts can be provided by different institutions. A comprehensive view of network-accessible accounts is useful to a user because, in the case of financial accounts, it enables a user to view a consolidated snapshot of all of the user's finances. For non-financial accounts, it enables a user to consolidate the information from these non-financial accounts. For non-financial accounts such as email accounts, this enables a user to view all emails from different email providers. This comprehensive view is achieved by aggregating the information about the user's accounts into one location. Typically the user enters in the URL, or some similar type of address, so that an aggregating service can locate the account.
Account access code generally refers to information that is required to gain access (e.g., user credentials) to a network-accessible account managed by a server over a network. This code is typically a user identifier and an authenticator. Given such account access information, a web-enabled program can automatically go out on a network and periodically collect high-level information about each network-accessible account. Subsequently, the program displays the high-level information to the user when the user logs into the server that provides the comprehensive view of his or her aggregated accounts.
A user interface wizard generally refers to a utility that helps a user perform a certain task with a software user interface. The utility typically guides the user through a series of steps. A utility generally refers to a program included in a larger application that uses software to perform a specific job.